Throughout the short history of video-based gaming, there has been a constant quest for realism and interactivity. This is evidenced by the rapid transition from devices such as “Pong” through the Atari 2600 system to more advanced systems such as the Nintendo Wii system. The characters, actions, scenery, and appearances are designed to be as close to reality as possible. For example, video arcades now host games that vibrate, shake, and emit sounds during game play, in an attempt to fully engage the player in the game.
Despite the swift advances that have been made in video game realism and interactivity, no current game permits vocal interactivity in which a player can speak into a microphone and have an on-screen avatar appear as if it were speaking the player's words or sounds. Additionally, no existing video game permits a player to be projected in three dimensions within the virtual world, thus adding to the convincing nature of his speech.
A number of prior inventions provide for in-game voice communication serving to make the game experience more realistic, with various designs serving to react to voice amplitude or intonation. As will be shown, the invention herein achieves realism in a more comprehensive manner, and provides features not found in any of the prior inventions.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,491,123 by Smith for VIDEO GAME VOICE CHAT WITH AMPLITUDE-BASED VIRTUAL RANGING discloses a video game voice chat mechanism wherein the amplitude of a player's voice determines how far his message is carried in the game. The range the message carries is based on the amplitude of the speaker's voice and the relative positions of the speaker's avatar from the avatars of other players in the game environment.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,785,197 by Smith for VOICE-TO-TEXT CHAT CONVERSION FOR REMOTE VIDEO GAME PLAY discloses a multi-player networked video game playing system including for example video game consoles analyzes speech to vary the font size and/or color of associated text displayed to other users. If the amplitude of the voice is high, the text displayed to other users is displayed in a larger than normal font. If the voice sounds stressed or is aggressive words are used, the text displayed to other users is displayed using a special font such as red color. Other analysis may be performed on the speech in context to vary the font size, color, font type and/or other display attributes.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,512,656 by Tsuchiya for VOICE CHAT SYSTEM discloses a voice chat system suitable for networked games. The voice chat system comprises a plurality of game apparatuses connected to a communications network and a server apparatus that manages voice chat between the game apparatuses. The server apparatus obtains from a game apparatus the IP address of the game apparatus which is to be the partner for the voice chat. The voice information inputted into the game apparatus is relayed over the IP network as a VoIP packet and is delivered to the chat partner's game apparatus via the server apparatus. Through this configuration, chat sounds are not outputted to all game apparatuses connected to the network but, instead, are outputted only to the game apparatuses specified by a player.